Well... sort of in a sensible order... o "...I have almost no idea of what i am doing..." This never goes away (hurrah). There's always something new to play with... just assume that's normal when using your machine. For me, that's the fun and intrigue... what happens if I press the Red Button... mu...

I guess the File Manager of a desktop OS is quite extensively tested in alpha, beta and released versions... someone(s) would have noticed and fixed a systemic anomaly. My number one suspect is that your hard drive is complaining, almost silently, that it's having problems with Read or Write. I woul...

Albert says: "Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." USB Stick Formatter doesn't need to write over byte 32768 which is where an ISO9660 signature is stored. So it doesn't write over it. So it's still there after the message "Successfully Formatted" appears. Linux won't attemp...

"wipe an ISO" Making a partition table and a partition and a file system does not necessarily write over an ISO9660 signature at drive address 32768. If Linux sees an ISO signature it simply refuses to attempt any writes to that file system. o You can use the Accessory Disks to zero the drive conten...

"root has been disabled" The default password for the root user in a Mint OS is made impossible to type with command... sudo passwd -d -l root man passwd -d Delete a user's password... Make it empty. -l Lock the password of the named account. Users with a locked password are not allowed to change th...

If you made the folders yourself, it's fine to remove them too. I would avoid the -r option, you can do a lot of damage really quickly. If the OS made the folders and they are still there, it suggests you are not using "Safely Remove Drive", or you are using it and not waiting long enough for the bu...

Shutdown writes all the RAM buffered data to the hard drive... o Have you got 'hibernate' switched on? o Does the accessory Disks report the drive is healthy? You can force an emergency no-questions-asked 'off' with the keypress [Alt]+[SysRq]+[o] but it's a bad habit. Just this once, does that switc...

"Error reading bootsector: Input/output error" My first guess is that the electronics can no longer see the platter, or at least not every time it tries a read... o Damaged head... did someone drop it... has it been travelling in a motor vehicle? o Motor not properly under control... sticky or hot b...

I read once that the Linux USB driver can't share access. If a USB drive gets mounted automatically by the host OS then that hardware becomes unavailable to the guest OS. Just saying, you might want to switch off the 'Automatically Mount Removable Storage' option in the host OS file manager.

The ._ prefix looks like an addition made by the file-transfer program. Files can't instantly be created so it assembles a temporary version and renames it when the copy is the same as the original. So, I guess you didn't get a full copy of the original. JPG is not robust, just one bit wrong can tra...

There has been global disruption of wireless links in the past few days. To upset GPS it had to be bigger than the planet (!) my guess is the sun burped and everyone got a share. On the other hand, maybe your Bluetooth transmitter just went pop. There are removable USB-Bluetooth dongles that allow y...

A Live Session ISO9660 image is always read-only, so you are simply not allowed to edit it. That makes it perfect for a malware-resistant OS. Some 'reformat' methods see an ISO9660 signature and refuse to proceed. In that case... o The Accessory Disks will let you format a drive by filling it with z...